Video monitoring

ABSTRACT

One or more computing devices, systems, and/or methods for monitoring a video are provided. For example, the video may be rendered within a canvas overlaying a webpage within a web browser. The video may comprise an opaque portion (e.g., a bike) and a transparent portion (e.g., a transparent background such that the bike appears to be driving across the webpage as the video plays). User input associated with the canvas may be evaluated to determine whether the user input occurs over the opaque portion or the transparent portion. Responsive to the user input occurring over the opaque portion, the web browser may be transitioned from the webpage to a biking website linked to by the video. Responsive to the user input occurring over the transparent portion, the canvas may be closed to terminate the video.

BACKGROUND

Many users may access content, such as webpages, through user interfacessuch as web browsers. In an example, a user may access a social networkwebsite for viewing and sharing social network posts with friends. Inanother example, the user may access a news website for viewing sportsscores, entertainment news, and cooking suggestions. In this way, usersmay access a variety of content through user interfaces. Access tocontent may be costly not only to consumers of such content but also tocontent publishers of the content. For example, the user may pay for amonthly data plan so that a mobile device can access content over anetwork. In another example, a content publisher may pay for resourcesused to generate and provide content, and may also pay a network serviceprovider for network bandwidth usage to deliver the content toconsumers. The cost of content publishers providing content to consumersmay increase as the amount of data is consumed by consumers, which canbecome wasteful when consumers are provided with irrelevant oruninteresting content.

Some content publishers may provide users with access to webpages wherea video or other content may be overlaid the webpages. For example, auser may navigate to the news website in order to view daily sportsscores. A news content publisher, that hosts the news website, may allowa thirty party content publisher (e.g., a car dealership that hosts acar dealership website) to play a video, that overlays at least some ofa sports news webpage, for 15 seconds. The video may have a transparentbackground, such that some of the sports news webpage may still bevisible, and a car may appear to be driving across the screen (e.g., thecar may appear to be driving across the sports news webpage because ofthe transparent background). The video may play within a canvas thatoverlays the sports news webpage. The canvas may comprise any type ofuser interface element (e.g., a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) elementof HTML5 that uses <canvas> tags, which may be contained in <div> tags),which may overlay another user interface element of a webpage.

The canvas and video may be treated as a single element, such that whenthe user clicks anywhere on the canvas, a click event may occur withoutconsideration of whether the user clicked on the car (e.g., indicatingthat the user has an interest in the car, and thus may desire to visitthe car dealership website) or on a transparent portion within thecanvas (e.g., indicating that the user is not interested in the car, andwould like the video to be removed so that the user can continue toaccess the sports news webpage without interruption). Unfortunately,without the ability to discern whether the user clicked an opaqueportion of the video such as the car or the transparent portion of thevideo, the news content publisher must specify a rule where the video isalways closed upon click events of the canvas (e.g., but unfortunatelylosing an opportunity to route users to the car dealership website thatmay otherwise be interesting to some users) or where users are alwaystransitioned to the car dealership website upon click events of thecanvas (e.g., wasting bandwidth and computing resources, incurring costsassociated with providing irrelevant content, and/or decreasing users'experience where such users are not interested in the car dealershipwebsite).

SUMMARY

In accordance with the present disclosure, one or more computing devicesand/or methods for monitoring videos are provided. In an example, avideo, being rendered within a canvas overlaying content of a webpagedisplayed through a user interface, may be identified (e.g., a video ofan airplane may be rendered within a canvas overlaying a shoppingwebpage, where a background of the video is transparent so that theairplane appears to be flying over the shopping webpage). In an example,the video may be rendered based upon a grayscale video of the video anda color video of the video (e.g., grayscale percentages of the grayscalevideo may be added to color pixels of the color video to create alphacolor pixels that are displayed through the canvas, thus allowing forthe rendering of a transparent background). A temporary array may becreated and populated with transparency data of the video. For example,a grayscale array, of the grayscale video, may be traversed to populatethe temporary array with transparency values (e.g., alpha values)corresponding to amounts of black within the grayscale video.

A position of a pointer may be tracked with respect to the canvas (e.g.,or a touch display may be tracked to identify a position of a touchinput). Responsive to receiving a user input while the position of thepointer corresponds to a portion of the video (e.g., the user may clickor touch gesture within a boundary of the canvas), coordinates of theposition of the pointer may be transformed into a lookup value (e.g., alinear transformation may be performed from Cartesian coordinates to alinear array position lookup value). A transparency value (e.g., apercentage of opaqueness of a portion of the video at which the userinput occurred) may be identified at an array position, in the temporaryarray, that corresponds to the lookup value.

Responsive to the transparency value being greater than or equal to thethreshold value (e.g., the percentage of opaqueness is greater than thethreshold value such as greater than 35% opaqueness, and thus the usermay have clicked on the airplane), a first action may be performed uponthe canvas (e.g., the user interface may be transitioned from displayingthe sports news webpage and canvas to displaying an airplane ticketingwebsite linked to by the video because the user clicking on the airplanemay be indicative of user interest in the airplane and thus userinterest in the airplane ticketing website). Responsive to thetransparency value being less than the threshold value (e.g., thepercentage of opaqueness is less than the threshold value such as lessthan 35% opaqueness, and thus the user may have clicked on a transparentportion of the video), a second action may be performed upon the canvas(e.g., the canvas may be closed to terminate the video because the userclicking on the transparent portion of the video may be indicative ofthe user not having an interest in the airplane and thus not having aninterest in the airplane ticketing website).

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

While the techniques presented herein may be embodied in alternativeforms, the particular embodiments illustrated in the drawings are only afew examples that are supplemental of the description provided herein.These embodiments are not to be interpreted in a limiting manner, suchas limiting the claims appended hereto.

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a scenario involving various examples ofnetworks that may connect servers and clients.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a scenario involving an exampleconfiguration of a server that may utilize and/or implement at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a scenario involving an exampleconfiguration of a client that may utilize and/or implement at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example method for monitoring avideo.

FIG. 5A is a component block diagram illustrating an example system formonitoring a video, where the video is rendered within a canvasoverlaying a webpage.

FIG. 5B is a component block diagram illustrating an example system formonitoring a video, where a transparency value of a portion of the videois identified.

FIG. 5C is a component block diagram illustrating an example system formonitoring a video, where a web browser is transitioned to a webpagelinked to by the video.

FIG. 6A is a component block diagram illustrating an example system formonitoring a video, where the video is rendered within a canvasoverlaying a webpage.

FIG. 6B is a component block diagram illustrating an example system formonitoring a video, where a transparency value of a portion of the videois identified.

FIG. 6C is a component block diagram illustrating an example system formonitoring a video, where a canvas, within which the video is rendered,is closed to terminate the video.

FIG. 7 is an illustration of a scenario featuring an examplenon-transitory machine readable medium in accordance with one or more ofthe provisions set forth herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Subject matter will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, andwhich show, by way of illustration, specific example embodiments. Thisdescription is not intended as an extensive or detailed discussion ofknown concepts. Details that are known generally to those of ordinaryskill in the relevant art may have been omitted, or may be handled insummary fashion.

The following subject matter may be embodied in a variety of differentforms, such as methods, devices, components, and/or systems.Accordingly, this subject matter is not intended to be construed aslimited to any example embodiments set forth herein. Rather, exampleembodiments are provided merely to be illustrative. Such embodimentsmay, for example, take the form of hardware, software, firmware or anycombination thereof.

1. Computing Scenario

The following provides a discussion of some types of computing scenariosin which the disclosed subject matter may be utilized and/orimplemented.

1.1. Networking

FIG. 1 is an interaction diagram of a scenario 100 illustrating aservice 102 provided by a set of servers 104 to a set of client devices110 via various types of networks. The servers 104 and/or client devices110 may be capable of transmitting, receiving, processing, and/orstoring many types of signals, such as in memory as physical memorystates.

The servers 104 of the service 102 may be internally connected via alocal area network 106 (LAN), such as a wired network where networkadapters on the respective servers 104 are interconnected via cables(e.g., coaxial and/or fiber optic cabling), and may be connected invarious topologies (e.g., buses, token rings, meshes, and/or trees). Theservers 104 may be interconnected directly, or through one or more othernetworking devices, such as routers, switches, and/or repeaters. Theservers 104 may utilize a variety of physical networking protocols(e.g., Ethernet and/or Fiber Channel) and/or logical networkingprotocols (e.g., variants of an Internet Protocol (IP), a TransmissionControl Protocol (TCP), and/or a User Datagram Protocol (UDP). The localarea network 106 may include, e.g., analog telephone lines, such as atwisted wire pair, a coaxial cable, full or fractional digital linesincluding T1, T2, T3, or T4 type lines, Integrated Services DigitalNetworks (ISDNs), Digital Subscriber Lines (DSLs), wireless linksincluding satellite links, or other communication links or channels,such as may be known to those skilled in the art. The local area network106 may be organized according to one or more network architectures,such as server/client, peer-to-peer, and/or mesh architectures, and/or avariety of roles, such as administrative servers, authenticationservers, security monitor servers, data stores for objects such as filesand databases, business logic servers, time synchronization servers,and/or front-end servers providing a user-facing interface for theservice 102.

Likewise, the local area network 106 may comprise one or moresub-networks, such as may employ differing architectures, may becompliant or compatible with differing protocols and/or may interoperatewithin the local area network 106. Additionally, a variety of local areanetworks 106 may be interconnected; e.g., a router may provide a linkbetween otherwise separate and independent local area networks 106.

In the scenario 100 of FIG. 1, the local area network 106 of the service102 is connected to a wide area network 108 (WAN) that allows theservice 102 to exchange data with other services 102 and/or clientdevices 110. The wide area network 108 may encompass variouscombinations of devices with varying levels of distribution andexposure, such as a public wide-area network (e.g., the Internet) and/ora private network (e.g., a virtual private network (VPN) of adistributed enterprise).

In the scenario 100 of FIG. 1, the service 102 may be accessed via thewide area network 108 by a user 112 of one or more client devices 110,such as a portable media player (e.g., an electronic text reader, anaudio device, or a portable gaming, exercise, or navigation device); aportable communication device (e.g., a camera, a phone, a wearable or atext chatting device); a workstation; and/or a laptop form factorcomputer. The respective client devices 110 may communicate with theservice 102 via various connections to the wide area network 108. As afirst such example, one or more client devices 110 may comprise acellular communicator and may communicate with the service 102 byconnecting to the wide area network 108 via a wireless local areanetwork 106 provided by a cellular provider. As a second such example,one or more client devices 110 may communicate with the service 102 byconnecting to the wide area network 108 via a wireless local areanetwork 106 provided by a location such as the user's home or workplace(e.g., a WiFi (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)Standard 802.11) network or a Bluetooth (IEEE Standard 802.15.1)personal area network). In this manner, the servers 104 and the clientdevices 110 may communicate over various types of networks. Other typesof networks that may be accessed by the servers 104 and/or clientdevices 110 include mass storage, such as network attached storage(NAS), a storage area network (SAN), or other forms of computer ormachine readable media.

1.2. Server Configuration

FIG. 2 presents a schematic architecture diagram 200 of a server 104that may utilize at least a portion of the techniques provided herein.Such a server 104 may vary widely in configuration or capabilities,alone or in conjunction with other servers, in order to provide aservice such as the service 102.

The server 104 may comprise one or more processors 210 that processinstructions. The one or more processors 210 may optionally include aplurality of cores; one or more coprocessors, such as a mathematicscoprocessor or an integrated graphical processing unit (GPU); and/or oneor more layers of local cache memory. The server 104 may comprise memory202 storing various forms of applications, such as an operating system204; one or more server applications 206, such as a hypertext transportprotocol (HTTP) server, a file transfer protocol (FTP) server, or asimple mail transport protocol (SMTP) server; and/or various forms ofdata, such as a database 208 or a file system. The server 104 maycomprise a variety of peripheral components, such as a wired and/orwireless network adapter 214 connectible to a local area network and/orwide area network; one or more storage components 216, such as a harddisk drive, a solid-state storage device (SSD), a flash memory device,and/or a magnetic and/or optical disk reader.

The server 104 may comprise a mainboard featuring one or morecommunication buses 212 that interconnect the processor 210, the memory202, and various peripherals, using a variety of bus technologies, suchas a variant of a serial or parallel AT Attachment (ATA) bus protocol; aUniform Serial Bus (USB) protocol; and/or Small Computer SystemInterface (SCI) bus protocol. In a multibus scenario, a communicationbus 212 may interconnect the server 104 with at least one other server.Other components that may optionally be included with the server 104(though not shown in the schematic architecture diagram 200 of FIG. 2)include a display; a display adapter, such as a graphical processingunit (GPU); input peripherals, such as a keyboard and/or mouse; and aflash memory device that may store a basic input/output system (BIOS)routine that facilitates booting the server 104 to a state of readiness.

The server 104 may operate in various physical enclosures, such as adesktop or tower, and/or may be integrated with a display as an“all-in-one” device. The server 104 may be mounted horizontally and/orin a cabinet or rack, and/or may simply comprise an interconnected setof components. The server 104 may comprise a dedicated and/or sharedpower supply 218 that supplies and/or regulates power for the othercomponents. The server 104 may provide power to and/or receive powerfrom another server and/or other devices. The server 104 may comprise ashared and/or dedicated climate control unit 220 that regulates climateproperties, such as temperature, humidity, and/or airflow. Many suchservers 104 may be configured and/or adapted to utilize at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

1.3. Client Device Configuration

FIG. 3 presents a schematic architecture diagram 300 of a client device110 whereupon at least a portion of the techniques presented herein maybe implemented. Such a client device 110 may vary widely inconfiguration or capabilities, in order to provide a variety offunctionality to a user such as the user 112. The client device 110 maybe provided in a variety of form factors, such as a desktop or towerworkstation; an “all-in-one” device integrated with a display 308; alaptop, tablet, convertible tablet, or palmtop device; a wearable devicemountable in a headset, eyeglass, earpiece, and/or wristwatch, and/orintegrated with an article of clothing; and/or a component of a piece offurniture, such as a tabletop, and/or of another device, such as avehicle or residence. The client device 110 may serve the user in avariety of roles, such as a workstation, kiosk, media player, gamingdevice, and/or appliance.

The client device 110 may comprise one or more processors 310 thatprocess instructions. The one or more processors 310 may optionallyinclude a plurality of cores; one or more coprocessors, such as amathematics coprocessor or an integrated graphical processing unit(GPU); and/or one or more layers of local cache memory. The clientdevice 110 may comprise memory 301 storing various forms ofapplications, such as an operating system 303; one or more userapplications 302, such as document applications, media applications,file and/or data access applications, communication applications such asweb browsers and/or email clients, utilities, and/or games; and/ordrivers for various peripherals. The client device 110 may comprise avariety of peripheral components, such as a wired and/or wirelessnetwork adapter 306 connectible to a local area network and/or wide areanetwork; one or more output components, such as a display 308 coupledwith a display adapter (optionally including a graphical processing unit(GPU)), a sound adapter coupled with a speaker, and/or a printer; inputdevices for receiving input from the user, such as a keyboard 311, amouse, a microphone, a camera, and/or a touch-sensitive component of thedisplay 308; and/or environmental sensors, such as a global positioningsystem (GPS) receiver 319 that detects the location, velocity, and/oracceleration of the client device 110, a compass, accelerometer, and/orgyroscope that detects a physical orientation of the client device 110.Other components that may optionally be included with the client device110 (though not shown in the schematic architecture diagram 300 of FIG.3) include one or more storage components, such as a hard disk drive, asolid-state storage device (SSD), a flash memory device, and/or amagnetic and/or optical disk reader; and/or a flash memory device thatmay store a basic input/output system (BIOS) routine that facilitatesbooting the client device 110 to a state of readiness; and a climatecontrol unit that regulates climate properties, such as temperature,humidity, and airflow.

The client device 110 may comprise a mainboard featuring one or morecommunication buses 312 that interconnect the processor 310, the memory301, and various peripherals, using a variety of bus technologies, suchas a variant of a serial or parallel AT Attachment (ATA) bus protocol;the Uniform Serial Bus (USB) protocol; and/or the Small Computer SystemInterface (SCI) bus protocol. The client device 110 may comprise adedicated and/or shared power supply 318 that supplies and/or regulatespower for other components, and/or a battery 304 that stores power foruse while the client device 110 is not connected to a power source viathe power supply 318. The client device 110 may provide power to and/orreceive power from other client devices.

In some scenarios, as a user 112 interacts with a software applicationon a client device 110 (e.g., an instant messenger and/or electronicmail application), descriptive content in the form of signals or storedphysical states within memory (e.g., an email address, instant messengeridentifier, phone number, postal address, message content, date, and/ortime) may be identified. Descriptive content may be stored, typicallyalong with contextual content. For example, the source of a phone number(e.g., a communication received from another user via an instantmessenger application) may be stored as contextual content associatedwith the phone number. Contextual content, therefore, may identifycircumstances surrounding receipt of a phone number (e.g., the date ortime that the phone number was received), and may be associated withdescriptive content. Contextual content, may, for example, be used tosubsequently search for associated descriptive content. For example, asearch for phone numbers received from specific individuals, receivedvia an instant messenger application or at a given date or time, may beinitiated. The client device 110 may include one or more servers thatmay locally serve the client device 110 and/or other client devices ofthe user 112 and/or other individuals. For example, a locally installedwebserver may provide web content in response to locally submitted webrequests. Many such client devices 110 may be configured and/or adaptedto utilize at least a portion of the techniques presented herein.

2. Presented Techniques

One or more computing devices and/or techniques for monitoring videosare provided. A content publisher may provide users with content throughuser interfaces, such as a webpage provided through a web browser. Thecontent publisher may allow another content publisher, such as a thirdparty content publisher, to play a video through a canvas that mayoverlay at least some of the webpage. The video may have a transparentbackground, such that some of the webpage may still be visible throughthe canvas (e.g., a video of a bike may appear to a user as though thebike is driving across a videogame webpage because the video has atransparent background). When the user clicks on the video through thecanvas, a click input event does not distinguish between whether theuser clicked on an opaque portion of the video (e.g., the user may clickthe bike, thus indicating that the bike and a biking website linked toby the video may be relevant to the user) or a transparent portion ofthe video (e.g., the user may click on the transparent backgroundoverlaying a videogame review link of the videogame webpage, thusindicating that the user is more interested in the videogame review linkthan the bike or the biking website). The content provider can specify arule that the video is always terminated upon click input events (e.g.,so that uninterested users do not have a poor experience by beingtransitioned to unwanted content, which otherwise wastes computingresources and bandwidth) or that users are always transitioned to thebiking website upon click input events (e.g., so that interested userscan access the biking website).

Unfortunately, always terminating the video may waste opportunities totransition interested users to the biking website, while alwaystransitioning to the biking website wastes significant computingresources and costly network bandwidth (e.g., costly data of a user dataplan and/or costly bandwidth purchased from a network service providerby the content publisher) and provides a poor user experience foruninterested users. Accordingly, as provided herein, an appropriateaction (e.g., dynamically determining in real-time whether to terminatethe video or transition to the linked to webpage based upon current useractions) may be taken based upon distinguishing between whether userinput, with the video within the canvas, is associated with atransparent portion of the video or an opaque portion of the video(e.g., the bike). In this way, computing resources and/or networkbandwidth are efficiently utilized or conserved by merely providingusers with relevant content.

An embodiment of monitoring a video is illustrated by an example method400 of FIG. 4. A content publisher may provide users with access tocontent, such as a webpage, that is accessible through a user interfacesuch as a web browser (e.g., a user may access a funny cat jokeswebsite). At 402, a video, being rendered within a canvas overlyingcontent of the webpage displayed through the user interface, may beidentified. The canvas may comprise any type of user interface element(e.g., a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) element of HTML5 that uses<canvas> tags, which may be contained in <div> tags), which may overlayanother user interface element of a webpage. The video may comprise anopaque portion (e.g., a bird) and a transparent portion (e.g., atransparent background through which some of the funny cat jokes websitemay be visible). In an example, the video may be rendered within thecanvas based upon imagery of a color video of the video and transparencyvalues (e.g., alpha transparency values indicating a degree ofopaqueness) of a grayscale video of the video. For example, a picture ofthe color video may be captured. The picture may comprise color pixels(e.g., RRGGBB pixels). Grayscale percentages of pixels within thegrayscale video may be calculated (e.g., and stored within a grayscalearray), which may be based upon amounts of black within a frame of thegrayscale video. The grayscale percentages may be added to the colorpixels of the picture to create alpha color pixels (e.g., AARRGGBBpixels) that are displayed through the canvas (e.g., as opposed toplaying the actual video through the canvas, thus providing the abilityto create transparent backgrounds for the color video). The color videoand/or the grayscale video may be played outside a view region of adevice hosting the user interface so that the user does not see thecolor video and/or the grayscale video.

At 404, a temporary array may be created. The temporary array maycomprise a linear byte array within which transparency values (e.g.,alpha transparency values within the grayscale array) may be stored. Atransparency value, such as an alpha transparency value, may beindicative of a degree of opaqueness (e.g., a larger transparency valuemay be indicative of a more opaque portion of the video such as thebird). At 406, the temporary array may be populated with transparencydata of the video. For example, the grayscale array may be traversed topopulate the temporary array with transparency values corresponding toamounts of black within the grayscale video. In an example, transparencyvalues at every n^(th) position (e.g., based upon a number of pixelsused for a pointer pixel image used to track a position of a pointer,such as every 4^(th) position for a 2×2 pixel image) may be transferredinto the temporary array. The temporary array may be repopulated (e.g.,deleted, recreated, and repopulated) with new transparency data at afixed rate (e.g., every 30 milliseconds).

At 406, the position of the pointer with respect to the canvas may betracked (e.g., or a touch display may be monitored to identify userinput, such as a touch gesture, with respect to the canvas). Forexample, the pointer pixel image (e.g., a 2×2 pixel image or any othernumber or grouping/shape of pixels) may be created to represent theposition of the pointer. A location of the pointer pixel image may beupdated based upon changes in position of the pointer. In an example,the pointer pixel image may be offset from the canvas by an offset suchthat the pointer pixel image is not visible to the user (e.g.,positioned outside the view region of the device hosting the userinterface so that the user does not see the pointer pixel imageregardless of locational changes of the pointer pixel image occurringdue to changes in position of the pointer).

Responsive to receiving a user input while the position of the pointercorresponds to a portion of the video (e.g., or the user inputcorresponding to a touch gesture over the portion of the video),coordinates of the position of the pointer (e.g., or of the touchgesture) may be transformed into a lookup value, at 408. For example,Cartesian coordinates of the position of the pointer may be transformedinto a linear lookup value into the temporary array because thetemporary array may comprise a linear array of transparency values. At410, a transparency value (e.g., an alpha transparency value indicativeof a degree of opaqueness of the portion of the video), at an arrayposition in the temporary array corresponding to the lookup value, maybe identified. The larger the transparency value, the more opaque theportion of the video (e.g., more indicative of the user clicking on thebird). The smaller the transparency value, the more transparent theportion of the video (e.g., more indicative of the user click on thetransparent background, such as the user attempting to click on a funnycat joke within the funny cat jokes website).

At 412, responsive to the transparency value being greater than or equalto a threshold value (e.g., indicative of the portion of the video beingan opaque portion such as the bird), a first action may be performedupon the canvas. For example, a target webpage, linked to by the video,may be identified (e.g., a bird house building webpage). The userinterface may be transitioned from the funny cat jokes website to thebird house building webpage because the user clicked on the opaqueportion, such as the bird, of the video, and thus may be interested inthe bird house building webpage.

At 414, responsive to the transparency value being less than thethreshold value (e.g., indicative of the portion of the video being atransparent portion such as the transparent background), a second actionmay be performed upon the canvas. For example, the canvas may be closedto terminate the video because the user clicked on the transparentportion of the video, and thus may not be interested in the bird housebuilding webpage. In an example, the threshold value may be selectedbased upon who is the content provider of the video (e.g., a largeramount of opaqueness may be set for a certain content provider beforetriggering the first action).

FIGS. 5A-5C illustrate examples of a system 500 for monitoring a video.FIG. 5A illustrates a user device 502 accessing a videogame website 515using a web browser 504. The web browser 504 may be displayed within avisible display region 503 of the user device 502. The videogame website515 may comprise one or more elements, such as a first link 506 to thelatest videogame reviews, a second link 508 to a new videogame systemarticle, a third link 510 to provide comments on favorite videogames, afourth link 512 to watch teens play old school games, a fifth link 514to a 3D playtest article, etc.

A canvas 516 may be displayed overlaying the videogame website 515. Itmay be appreciated that a boundary of the canvas 516 may not be visibleand is merely illustrated with dashed lined for illustrative purposes. Avideo may be rendered within the canvas 516. The video may depict one ormore opaque elements such as a moon 518 and a car 520 (e.g., the car 520may drive across the web browser 504 from left to right as the videoplays). The video may have a transparent background, such that a usermay be able to see underlying portions of the videogame website 515notwithstanding the canvas 516 overlaying such portions (e.g., the car520 may appear to be driving across the videogame website 515). Insteadof playing the actual video, a color video 524 of the video and agrayscale video 526 of the video may be played within a non-visibleregion 505 of the user device 502. Grayscale percentages of thegrayscale video 526 may be applied to color pixels of the color video524 to create alpha color pixels that are displayed through the canvas516 for rendering the video. In this way, the alpha color pixels may beused to render the moon 518, the car 520, and the transparentbackground. Transparency values 530 of the grayscale video 526 may bepopulated within a temporary array 528. The transparency values 530 maybe updated as the grayscale video 526 plays.

A pointer pixel image 525 may be created, such as within the non-visibleregion 505 of the user device 502 (e.g., offset from the canvas 516 byan offset so that the pointer pixel image 525 is not visible to theuser). A location of the pointer pixel image 525 may be used torepresent a position of a pointer 522. For example, as the pointer 522is moved, the location of the pointer pixel image 525 may be updatedbased upon changes to the position of the pointer 522.

FIG. 5B illustrates the user moving the pointer 522 to a position thatoverlays the car 520 of the video being rendered within the canvas 516,and clicking the car 520 at a click position 540. In an example, acurrent location of the pointer pixel image 525 (e.g., updated basedupon the pointer 522 moving to the click position 54) may be used toidentify Cartesian coordinates of the pointer 522 based upon the offset.A linear equivalent of the click position 540 is calculated as a lookupvalue from localization of the Cartesian coordinates based upon theoffset, whereLinearPosition=Math.floor(offset.y*config.width)+offset.x−1) whereinLinear Position is the linear equivalent of the click position 540,offset represents an object comprising localized Cartesian coordinates(e.g., offset.y is a y offset value along a y-coordinate and offset.x isan x offset value along an x-coordinate), Math.floor is a function thatreturns a largest integer less than or equal to a given number, andconfig.width is a configuration width setting. The lookup value is usedto identify a transparency value within the temporary array 528. In anexample, the transparency value is indicative of a 98% opaqueness of aportion of the video at the click position 540, such as the car 520.FIG. 5C illustrates the web browser 504 being transitioned from thevideogame website 515 to a car website 550 linked to by the video. Forexample, the web browser 504 may be transitioned to the car website 550based upon the transparency value being greater than a threshold (e.g.,98% opaqueness being greater than a 40% threshold opaque value), whichmay indicate that the user attempted to click on an opaque portion ofthe video, such as the car 520, because the user has an interest in thevideo, and thus may have an interest in the car website 550.

FIGS. 6A-6C illustrate examples of a system 600 for monitoring a video.FIG. 6A illustrates a user device 602 accessing a gardening website 615using a web browser 604. The web browser 604 may be displayed within avisible display region 603 of the user device 602. The gardening website615 may comprise one or more elements, such as a first link 606 topurchase roses, a second link 608 to discuss favorite plants, a thirdlink 610 to view garden images, a fourth link 612 to a top weed controllist, a fifth link 614 to a how to kill moss article, etc.

A canvas 616 may be displayed overlaying the gardening website 615. Itmay be appreciated that a boundary of the canvas 616 may not be visibleand is merely illustrated with dashed lined for illustrative purposes. Avideo may be rendered within the canvas 616. The video may depict one ormore opaque elements such as a computer monitor 620 (e.g., the computermonitor 620 may bounce around as the video plays). The video may have atransparent background, such that a user may be able to see underlyingportions of the gardening website 615 notwithstanding the canvas 616overlaying such portions (e.g., the computer monitor 620 may appear tobounce around the gardening website 615). Instead of playing the actualvideo, a color video 624 of the video and a grayscale video 626 of thevideo may be played within a non-visible region 605 of the user device602. Grayscale percentages of the grayscale video 626 may be applied tocolor pixels of the color video 624 to create alpha color pixels thatare displayed through the canvas 616 as the video. In this way, thealpha color pixels may be used to render the computer monitor 620 andthe transparent background. Transparency values 630 of the grayscalevideo 626 may be populated within a temporary array 628. Thetransparency values 630 may be updated as the grayscale video 626 plays.

A pointer pixel image 625 may be created, such as within the non-visibleregion 605 of the user device 602 (e.g., offset from the canvas 616 byan offset so that the pointer pixel image 625 is not visible to theuser). A location of the pointer pixel image 625 may be used torepresent a position of user input, such as a touch location 622 atwhich a user may touch a display of the user device 602. For example, asthe touch location 622 is moved, the location of the pointer pixel image625 may be updated based upon changes to the touch location 622.

FIG. 6B illustrates the user performing a touch and release gesture 642at a touch position 640 that overlays the transparent background of thevideo. In an example, a current location of the pointer pixel image 625may be used to identify Cartesian coordinates of the touch and releasegesture 642 based upon the offset. A linear equivalent of the touchposition 640 is calculated as a lookup value from localization of theCartesian coordinates. The lookup value is used to identify atransparency value within the temporary array 628. In an example, thetransparency value is indicative of a 2% opaqueness of a portion of thevideo at the touch position 640, such as the transparent backgroundoverlaying the first link 606. FIG. 6C illustrates the canvas 616 beingclosed to terminate the video based upon the transparency value beingless than a threshold (e.g., 2% opaqueness being less than a 40%threshold opaque value), which may indicate that the user is notinterested in the video, such as content linked to by the video (e.g.,the user may be interested in interacting with the first link 606).

FIG. 7 is an illustration of a scenario 700 involving an examplenon-transitory machine readable medium 702. The non-transitory machinereadable medium 702 may comprise processor-executable instructions 712that when executed by a processor 716 cause performance (e.g., by theprocessor 716) of at least some of the provisions herein. Thenon-transitory machine readable medium 702 may comprise a memorysemiconductor (e.g., a semiconductor utilizing static random accessmemory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/or synchronousdynamic random access memory (SDRAM) technologies), a platter of a harddisk drive, a flash memory device, or a magnetic or optical disc (suchas a compact disk (CD), a digital versatile disk (DVD), or floppy disk).The example non-transitory machine readable medium 702 storescomputer-readable data 704 that, when subjected to reading 706 by areader 710 of a device 708 (e.g., a read head of a hard disk drive, or aread operation invoked on a solid-state storage device), express theprocessor-executable instructions 712. In some embodiments, theprocessor-executable instructions 712, when executed cause performanceof operations, such as at least some of the example method 400 of FIG.4, for example. In some embodiments, the processor-executableinstructions 712 are configured to cause implementation of a system,such as at least some of the example system 500 of FIGS. 5A-5C and/or atleast some of the example system 600 of FIGS. 6A-6C, for example.

3. Usage of Terms

As used in this application, “component,” “module,” “system”,“interface”, and/or the like are generally intended to refer to acomputer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware andsoftware, software, or software in execution. For example, a componentmay be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, aprocessor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program,and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application runningon a controller and the controller can be a component. One or morecomponents may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and acomponent may be localized on one computer and/or distributed betweentwo or more computers.

Unless specified otherwise, “first,” “second,” and/or the like are notintended to imply a temporal aspect, a spatial aspect, an ordering, etc.Rather, such terms are merely used as identifiers, names, etc. forfeatures, elements, items, etc. For example, a first object and a secondobject generally correspond to object A and object B or two different ortwo identical objects or the same object.

Moreover, “example” is used herein to mean serving as an example,instance, illustration, etc., and not necessarily as advantageous. Asused herein, “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or” rather than anexclusive “or”. In addition, “a” and “an” as used in this applicationare generally be construed to mean “one or more” unless specifiedotherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singular form. Also,at least one of A and B and/or the like generally means A or B or both Aand B. Furthermore, to the extent that “includes”, “having”, “has”,“with”, and/or variants thereof are used in either the detaileddescription or the claims, such terms are intended to be inclusive in amanner similar to the term “comprising”.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above.Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed asexample forms of implementing at least some of the claims.

Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may be implemented as a method,apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/orengineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or anycombination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosedsubject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein isintended to encompass a computer program accessible from anycomputer-readable device, carrier, or media. Of course, manymodifications may be made to this configuration without departing fromthe scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter.

Various operations of embodiments are provided herein. In an embodiment,one or more of the operations described may constitute computer readableinstructions stored on one or more computer readable media, which ifexecuted by a computing device, will cause the computing device toperform the operations described. The order in which some or all of theoperations are described should not be construed as to imply that theseoperations are necessarily order dependent. Alternative ordering will beappreciated by one skilled in the art having the benefit of thisdescription. Further, it will be understood that not all operations arenecessarily present in each embodiment provided herein. Also, it will beunderstood that not all operations are necessary in some embodiments.

Also, although the disclosure has been shown and described with respectto one or more implementations, equivalent alterations and modificationswill occur to others skilled in the art based upon a reading andunderstanding of this specification and the annexed drawings. Thedisclosure includes all such modifications and alterations and islimited only by the scope of the following claims. In particular regardto the various functions performed by the above described components(e.g., elements, resources, etc.), the terms used to describe suchcomponents are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, toany component which performs the specified function of the describedcomponent (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though notstructurally equivalent to the disclosed structure. In addition, while aparticular feature of the disclosure may have been disclosed withrespect to only one of several implementations, such feature may becombined with one or more other features of the other implementations asmay be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: identifying a video;determining a grayscale video of the video and a color video of thevideo; playing the grayscale video and the color video within anon-visible region of a user device; applying grayscale percentages ofthe grayscale video to color pixels of the color video to create alphacolor pixels; rendering, based upon the alpha color pixels associatedwith the grayscale video and the color video, the video within a canvasoverlaying content of a webpage displayed through a user interface,wherein the rendering comprises displaying an opaque element of thevideo at least partially overlaying one or more elements of the webpage;creating a temporary array; populating the temporary array withtransparency data of the video; tracking a position of a pointer withrespect to the canvas; and responsive to receiving a user input whilethe position of the pointer corresponds to a portion of the video:transforming coordinates of the position of the pointer into a lookupvalue; identifying a transparency value at an array position in thetemporary array corresponding to the lookup value; responsive to thetransparency value being greater than or equal to a threshold value,performing a first action upon the canvas; and responsive to thetransparency value being less than the threshold value, performing asecond action upon the canvas.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thepopulating the temporary array comprises: traversing a grayscale array,of the grayscale video, to populate the temporary array withtransparency values corresponding to amounts of black within thegrayscale video.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the traversingcomprises: transferring transparency values at every nth position of thegrayscale array into the temporary array.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the nth position is a 4^(th) position.
 5. The method of claim 1,comprising: deleting the temporary array and repopulating the temporaryarray with new transparency data at a fixed rate.
 6. The method of claim1, wherein the rendering comprises displaying at least a part of the oneor more elements of the webpage on which the opaque element does notoverlay.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more elements ofthe webpage comprise one or more links on the webpage.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the tracking a position of a pointer comprises:creating a pointer pixel image to represent the position of the pointer;and updating a location of the pointer pixel image based upon changes inposition of the pointer.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the pointerpixel image is a 2×2 pixel image.
 10. The method of claim 8, comprising:offsetting the pointer pixel image from the canvas by an offset suchthat the pointer pixel image is not visible to a user.
 11. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the transforming coordinates of the position comprises:transforming Cartesian coordinates of the position of the pointer into alinear lookup value into the temporary array.
 12. The method of claim 1,wherein the performing a first action comprises: identifying a targetwebpage linked to by the video; and transitioning the user interfacefrom the webpage to the target webpage.
 13. The method of claim 1,wherein the performing a second action comprises: closing the canvas toterminate the video.
 14. The method of claim 1, comprising: selecting afirst value as the threshold value based upon the video being providedby a first content provider; and selecting a second value as thethreshold value based upon the video being provided by a second contentprovider.
 15. A computing device comprising: a processor; and memorycomprising processor-executable instructions that when executed by theprocessor cause performance of operations, the operations comprising:identifying a video; determining a grayscale video of the video and acolor video of the video, wherein grayscale percentages of the grayscalevideo and color pixels of the color video are used to render the videowhile the grayscale video and the color video are played within anon-visible region of a user device; rendering, based upon alpha colorpixels associated with the grayscale video and the color video, thevideo within a canvas overlaying content of a webpage displayed througha user interface, wherein the rendering comprises displaying an opaqueelement of the video at least partially overlaying one or more elementsof the webpage; populating a temporary array with transparency data ofthe video, wherein the populating comprises traversing a grayscalearray, of the grayscale video, to populate the temporary array withtransparency values corresponding to amounts of black within thegrayscale video; and responsive to receiving a user input withcoordinates corresponding to the canvas: identifying a transparencyvalue at an array position in the temporary array corresponding to thecoordinates; responsive to the transparency value being greater than orequal to a threshold value, performing a first action upon the canvas;and responsive to the transparency value being less than the thresholdvalue, performing a second action upon the canvas.
 16. The computingdevice of claim 15, wherein the operations comprise: identifying atarget content linked to by the video; and performing the first actionto transition the user interface from the content to the target content.17. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the operations comprise:performing the second action to close the canvas to terminate the video.18. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the first action isdifferent than the second action.
 19. The computing device of claim 15,wherein the operations comprise: transferring transparency values atevery nth position of the grayscale array into the temporary array. 20.A non-transitory machine readable medium having stored thereonprocessor-executable instructions that when executed cause performanceof operations, the operations comprising: identifying a video;determining a grayscale video of the video and a color video of thevideo; playing the grayscale video and the color video within anon-visible region of a user device; applying grayscale percentages ofthe grayscale video to color pixels of the color video to create alphacolor pixels; rendering, based upon the alpha color pixels associatedwith the grayscale video and the color video, the video within a canvasoverlaying content of a webpage displayed through a user interface,wherein the rendering comprises displaying an opaque element of thevideo at least partially overlaying one or more elements of the webpage;tracking a position of a pointer with respect to the canvas; andresponsive to receiving a user input while the position of the pointercorresponds to the canvas: identifying a transparency value, of thevideo, associated with the position; responsive to the transparencyvalue being indicative of the opaque portion, transitioning a userinterface from displaying content over which the canvas is displayed todisplaying a target webpage linked to by the video; and responsive tothe transparency value being indicative of the transparent portion,closing the canvas to terminate the video.